Strengths and Weaknesses, Part 3

This post was originally part of the previous post, but I felt it was too long, so I broke it up. Hindsight is telling me that I left it at a bad point. So, here is part 3, not even 12 hours later.

When I was trying to raise my two boys alone while also facing my own health issues, I was completely unable to cope. Their extreme behaviours and meltdowns drained me of every lost drop of energy. A social worker that came to our home could see that I needed help. The home was beyond cluttered, as I wasn't able to maintain laundry or dishes, or cleaning the bathrooms. We were then blessed by the assistance of a homemaker. I was to work alongside her and work on maintaining cleanliness in the home.

Well, I had to let that homemaker go a couple of months ago. When seeking a replacement, it was pointed out to me that I really didn't need that help any longer. I became defensive. I am trying to start a business and still have chronic fatigue! I am using the funding for a housekeeper to help me get off government disability assistance! Well, I sought some advice from a friend who works full time and manages her home even though she has fibromyalgia – which comes with chronic fatigue. She had some great wisdom to share.

God has given me an opportunity to become independent of that help once again. I need to push through for 15 minutes a day, beyond what I think I can do, and get one task done. It is time to give up that government assistance. She also shared that seeking help from people that haven't faced what I face is frustrating for everyone. That advice made me realize that just like my boys were unable to understand another person's point of view, the people advising me on how to maintain my home could not understand my challenges.

After more prayer and meditation, I have realized that I do still need help with my home,  However, I have been seeking the wrong help. What I need is help from someone who can help me organize my home and my life in a way that empowers me to have success, and it doesn't have to come from government funding. (Give a man a fish and he eats for a day – teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime). I need to get that help from someone who understands how scatterbrained I am, and can help me to work within that weakness. All the advice I have ever received in terms of housekeeping has been from people who have no clue what it is like for me and no patience or desire to understand. I am not making an excuse, but rather sharing an epiphany!

There is hope for me – I just need to get help from someone who knows how to address my weakness! Just like my students who were able to do math when given blue paper, I can manage my home if given the tool that address the real problem! I can clean toilets and mop floors and don't mind doing so. That is not the issue. The issue is organization and distraction. So, I'm not sure how I will go about it, but I am taking steps to organize my home to make it easier to maintain. A friend has given me a website that has all sorts of organizational ideas. I have dropped some of my other responsibilities and commitments in order to have more time. I have even taken a few weeks away from the main aspects of the business in order to create organization in every area of my life.

When we give advice to others, we need to realize that not everyone can do things the way we do, or the way we think they should. Let us learn to give people the benefit of the doubt. When someone is trying, but still failing, we need to find out why. A person dealing with failure needs encouragement and help to understand what is at the root of the failure. Too often, just like the teachers my students had in the past, we judge the problem to be effort or some form of stupidity. Sometimes effort is the problem, but often there is a deeper problem that has led to failure so many times that the person believes it isn't worth trying any more. Stupidity is a harsh term that I believe is NEVER true. Perhaps that person has a real weakness in one or more areas in their life, but they DO have strengths. If we focus entirely on their weaknesses, we destroy the person.

As I finished editing the previous paragraph (some of which was also in the last post), I realized I already know the perfect person to help me with organization! For much of his life he was called stupid. He can read at the level of about an 11 year-old. A few years ago I told him with all sincerity that when my boys grow up, I want them to be like him. My boys are bright in terms of academics, but they lack the walk with God that leads to character, peace, and work ethic in this Christian brother. We had a flood in our basement a few months ago. What was already a disorganized storage and work area became a disaster. This awesome brother came and organized the mess for us! I believe that for me to organize that basement would have been the equivalent of this brother trying to take one of my university chemistry courses. Yes, I think I found a solution that will bless us both.

Praise people's strengths and give them encouragement and help where they are weak.

Dear Father,

Thank you for Your incredible love. You made each and every one of us just the way you wanted to. No one is a mistake! Each one of us has strengths and weaknesses – and you planned them. No one has it all together. I thank you so much that I can learn from someone I would have looked down on before I became a Christian. In those days, academics was everything to me. I praise you for how you change us and renew our minds to your thinking. Please help us all to realize everyone around us has something they can teach us. Everyone around us has weaknesses that are a result of how you made them, not because of lack of effort. We need to accept them as you do, with love and grace and patience. Please help us not to cram everyone into a box. We may fit very well in that box, but not everyone does. Sometimes we think the other person is the problem, when the problem is our box. Thank you for making everyone different and giving everyone a role in the body of Christ! Your love is so amazing! Thank you for this new day to worship and praise you!

Amen.

Strengths and Weaknesses Part 2

Academics come easily for me. However, the bane of my existence since childhood has been organization! As an adult I was diagnosed with ADD. Most people I have encountered think ADD refers to children in school who are hyperactive and have trouble focusing. Oh how I wish ADD was that simple. In reality, it is a difficulty to maintain a focus on some things while being able to focus on other things with extreme focus. I can rarely finish a task in my home because I am always distracted by something else. I actually can completely forget about the initial task until something else reminds me. Housework takes me longer than it should because I am always distracted, or I forget what I am doing. I go upstairs to get something and I forget why I am there. Sometimes I realize I forget why I am there and I get really frustrated with myself. Other times, I actually get distracted by something else and don't remember the original reason for being upstairs. When I eventually get back downstairs I am reminded why I went upstairs in the first place, and the cycle repeats itself.

The worst example of ADD in my life came a few years ago as I was trying to get out of the house to help volunteer at a Vacation Bible School. I was helping with photography. I got out to the car with my camera bag. The trunk was locked and I didn't have my keys, so I put my bag down. As I went to the house to get the keys, I realized I hadn't fed the ducks. So I took care of the ducks. When I got back, my son was already in the car with the keys. All I remembered by that point was that I needed the keys. The attention deficit of ADD meant I had lost what I was originally doing. In this case I remembered part of it. I got in the car and backed up. “CRUNCH!” I rolled over my camera bag!. My camera was damaged beyond repair! Please don't tell me that ADD is not real, or that it is not an excuse. This is just the most painful example, but every day there are many many examples of ADD messing up my day.

I have been judged in the past by many people because I cannot manage my housework, and my home is always cluttered. One friend a few years ago set me free from that. She gave me permission to not have a perfect house. It changed my life and released me from much of my depression. To me, my home always represented terrible failure. I was judged as a poor example to those I was trying to reach for Christ. However, since my friend set me free from that need to have a perfectly tidy home, I have had many people into my cluttered home. Many of them have also felt freedom, because their home is also a mess. I have had opportunities twice to have people off the streets into my home. One young girl had never had a religious person treat her with such respect and hospitality. My cluttered home didn't hurt my witness at all. I was able to send her off with a New Testament that she said she would read, because our 16 hours together had a real impact on her.

Please let us stop judging others for not being like ourselves. Please give one another the benefit of the doubt. Let us stop adding rules to the Bible that God did not put there. Jesus condemned those who required others to follow their own traditions and teachings which went beyond the Law of God. 

Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. (Luke 11:46)

When we require others to be like ourselves in ways that are not Scriptural, like demanding a certain perfection in housecleaning, we are being like the Pharisees -- especially if we do not offer any practical help on how to achieve that artificial standard. I am very grateful for those who are patiently trying to help me grow, without demanding an artificial standard!

I praise you Jesus for your great love! I praise you for loving us with patience and kindness, You are so humble that you left your throne in heaven to become a man and die on the cross for sinners like me. You honour us by adopting us into your family. We don't have to measure up to a standard that we cannot meet. You seek our affections, and died for us when you could have come down from the cross! You are not easily angered and when we come to you, you keep no record of our wrongs! You do not delight in evil, but rejoice when we see that You are the Truth. You always protect us. Because of that, we can always trust, hope and persevere! May we learn to love and accept others as you do, with unconditional love.